First tick of the year today

Deer ticks, the no see ums of the tick world. Nasty disease carry bass tids.

 

Deer ticks cause most common type on them...there are dog ticks too which you can get in woods
.miles from dogs

 

I've pulled dozens off the dog and cats, a couple crawling on me but none got any of my blood yet. I sprayed the whole yard, the stone wall and all the shrubs, if they're gonna get me they're gonna have to work at it.

 

Aw man... yellow jackets are my constant enemies. Talk about aggressive. Anybody have any of the african bees down south to deal with? They sound like fun...

 

Havent seen im here think there more texas and arizona area

 

Pulled 4 off me in a matter of 10 minutes out in the garden, and 3 the day before. I have since sprayed permethrin around the perimeter. I did have some success using some homemade bug spray with essential oils (Citronella, Tea Leaf, Lemongrass and Lavender). But I want them dead! I just hope I didn't disturb too much other beneficial life near the garden.

 

I'm thinking because the deer play a major role in the reproduction & transporting of ticks from property to property, just my guess.
Role of the Deer
Deer play a critical role in the reproduction of the deer tick. Deer live at the edge of the woods, where they feed on shrubs and other small plants as they move throughout their territory. Deer transport ticks from property to property. Deer do not infect ticks with Lyme disease. Ticks become infected after feeding on infected mice and other small mammals, such as chipmunks.
Deer browse a wide variety of flowers and shrubs, many commonly used by homeowners to landscape their properties. Landscaped yards provide deer with an ideal food source.

http://www.wwhd.org/TLD_CD/ticks.htm

 

The old back brush has been getting some action this year after coming out of the woods, I usually take a shower when I come out of the woods so I can get the pollen and any ticks off of me, last night was the first night I didn't.

http://www.duluthtrading.com/store/product/back-brush-shower-brush-97048.aspx

This is just a sample pic.

 

I'm up to a half dozen which is probably the norm for this time of year and my fondness for the outdoors. The wife has found 4 and she very rarely goes into any woodsy/ brushy area.

Permethrin all the way, but I've gotten a couple in my 'Sunday's best' which I never sprayed.

 

http://www.cdc.gov/ticks/resources/Hunterfactsheet.pdf

 

My wife lives for doin' tick checks on me... ............. (and, I taught Giz how to fly this morning)

 

I'm looking at this like an opportunity......just sayin'.

 

http://www.syracuse.com/outdoors/in...tickiest_time_of_the_year.html#incart_m-rpt-2

 

Since I began noticing ticks, it seems like they're most active between the middle of May through June or so. After June is when things start getting dry around here.

 

I would worry more about exposure to those chemicals than I would about the ticks. I just do a check for ticks when I get back inside. If I (we) miss one, and it bites me, I soon feel an itch at the bite site and remove it then.They say that if you get them off you within a day, they haven't had time to bloat up and start transferring Lyme back into your bloodstream. Over the last many years, I've only had a few that stayed on me more than a day, because I didn't remain vigilant. I've been folding the bottom of my pants legs to fit tight against my legs above my ankle-high boots, then securing with large rubberbands, then spraying my boots and pant legs to about my calves with Repel Lemon-Eucalyptus; That seems to keep them off but I have to renew the spray every couple hours or they will get on me. I may need to step it up to Permethrin. Just need to figure a way to keep the saw chips out of my boots. Wife is going to get me a pair of sweatpants at the used clothes store; I'll cut off the bottoms of the legs and slide them on above my boots with the elastic leg bottoms on top and the cut-off end down over my boots. There's no staying out of the woods for me until I have all my SILs a couple years ahead, and I'm in stack-maintenance mode. Especially after a winter like the last one, where I got nothing done.

Welcome to Indiana, huh? Luckily, this isn't an area with as high an incidence Lyme disease as some, like WI and the northeast. I've already pulled off about thirty or more deer and dog ticks, got chigger bites, black flies bites on my ears, poison ivy, got shredded by a variety of sticker bushes...and it's not even June yet. No Copperheads of Brown Recluse yet, though...
One summer, we were doing some exterior painting and got into a bed of deer tick nymphs. You think juvenile and adult deer ticks are small? Well, these nymphs are microscopic! I got in the shower, felt my ankles itching, looked down...OMG, they were all over me. I said "Honey, I think we got a problem!" Took us an hour or more to pick them all off of us; At least a hundred of them, all told. There seems to be hotbeds of ticks out there; I won't see hardly a one for a couple days, then I'll get into an area where I'll get five or ten on me. We have woods almost up to the house in the back, and I actually prefer to walk in the yard with shorts and sandals on; I can see or feel any creepy-crawly that gets on me.

 

If we ever end up with the number of ticks you've had, exposure of chems to my skin would be the least of my problems. Gawd, that's nuts. I'm focusing now on clothes up to waist height as being the zone to keep permethrin on. Seems the consensus is, ticks are only at low levels on grass and low leafy plants. If they get on you and don't run into permethrin, they climb... you. If you find one on your head or upper body, it's not likely they came from a branch or tree, or being blown thru the air. They just hop onto a warm body going by and then climb up. Mice and chipmunks are where the Lyme bacteria starts. Have plenty of both as well as a deer path I use all the time... I'm just very glad permethrin is a chem that actually kills the ticks while having some staying power.